Colourful
by I-survived-life
Summary: My life somehow went from bad to worse. First it was the spell in Charms that went work, and then it was the potion that blew up in my face. The lovely part is now I'm going to be blind indefinitely. Next time Albus and I have to work together, he should just let me do everything.


If I'd known when I woke up this morning that I was going to end up blind, I wouldn't have bothered getting out of bed. Then again, things like this just happen and you can't really prepare yourself for them. Some of what's happened to me is partly my fault as well, if I'd known that Albus Potter was this horrible at Charms and Potions then I would've asked the Professor to switch partners. As it was, I thought he was a perfectly nice boy and I thought working with him would be a breeze.

I can assure you right now that I was very, very wrong in thinking that.

The day started off as it usually did, someone rolled me out of bed and threw cold water on me to wake me up. I stumbled into the washroom and almost knocked myself out on the sink while trying to brush my hair and teeth at the same time. I pulled on a uniform that I was ninety-nine percent sure wasn't mine, grabbed my book bag and dragged my sorry butt down to breakfast.

The next hour or so consisted of my friends joining me for breakfast and grunting out requests such as 'pass the CheeriWho's,' and, 'take your hand out of the butter.' It was a slow morning, like always. Michael almost fell asleep in his cereal, again. Miranda was trying to cut her fried egg and ended up sending it flying in my face, and I accidentally overturned a bowl of syrup on myself.

I had to leave earlier than everyone else so that I could go to the washroom and clean myself up. After spending almost fifteen minutes getting some of the syrup off by hand, I managed to get the rest of it off with magic. I had no time to dry my blouse and skirt though so I had to run to Transfiguration looking like I'd wet myself. I barely made it and took a seat at the back so as not to draw attention to myself.

Luckily for me, Michael and Miranda often sat at the back of classes when I wasn't around to force them near the front so I was able to sit with them. I'd managed to dry my skirt and my shirt by the time that McGonagall walked in and the lesson started.

It was the first day of fifth year and this was my first lesson of getting the speech about OWLs and how important they were. McGonagall kept it short and to the point, she didn't say anymore than she needed to and fifteen minutes into the lesson we were assigned three chapters to read and take notes on. Everyone at my table was still too tired to talk so Miranda, Michael and I all got to work.

I was the only one that was actually awake and reading, the other two were just staring at their page without blinking. I was pretty sure that they'd drifted off to sleep and weren't really reading anything on the page. I was proved correct when they jumped once the bell rang to signal the end of class. I gathered my things, helped Michael to his feet since he seemed to be having a little bit of difficulty with the task, and after making sure that Miranda was okay, I said goodbye and headed for Herbology.

Professor Longbottom also gave us the speech on OWLs but his took about five minutes to give and then we were handling man-eating plants. We were handling Bubotuber Pus this class, and even though Neville had warned us about the pods, the stuff somehow still managed to get on everyone's hands, and sometimes, face. I managed to save myself a trip to the hospital however by dodging any flying pus.

I had Charms next, a class that I was looking forward to because it wasn't life threatening. Professor Flitwick gave everyone the same old speech, we were all prepared for it, the only thing we weren't prepared for were new seating partners. Everyone in Charms was spread out; Flitwick didn't want everyone to be cramped when we were practicing spells because the chances of us getting the spell wrong were higher.

I waited for my name to be called patiently and was surprised when I ended up being paired with Albus Potter. I was happy at the time because I thought he was good at Charms, I had no idea how very much he actually sucked at the class in reality. Flitwick started us off with a spell to change the colour of someone's eyebrows. It was a little advanced but I think Flitwick wanted see how much work he would need to do with us for the year.

If the majority of the class managed to master the spell then he could go through spells and theory relatively fast, and if just one or two people in the class managed to get the spell then the pace would be slower.

He demonstrated the motions that we had to make and the pronunciation of the spell for us twice and then let us practice with our new partners. I turned to face Albus expectantly, waiting for him to do the spell. He looked a bit nervous and after a few seconds of avoiding eye contact he finally managed to get out, "Ladies first."

I rolled my eyes but pointed my wand at his eyebrows anyway. Making sure my hand was steady; I concentrated and said the spell while going the wand movement. That was the tricky part about the spell, you can start out pointing at the eyebrows but you could end up getting someone in the eye. Unfortunately for me, that's exactly what ended up happening to me.

Albus was so nervous when he had to do the spell, his hand shook the entire time that he was holding the wand that should've been a sign that I needed to duck for cover. Instead, I foolishly looked him dead in the eyes and waited for him to complete the spell. He did the spell alright, he changed the colour of something but it wasn't my eyebrows at all.

Albus's spell hit me right in the eyes, causing prickling to occur behind my eyes and for everything to blend together into one giant pile of mush. I closed my eyes and clamped my hands over them, digging my heels in in the hope of stopping the prickling that was becoming more painful by the second. Flitwick made his way over to me and I could hear him asking me if I was okay. I shook my head no and focused on taking deep breaths instead of the pain building behind my eyes.

Everyone in the class had gone silent and I could only assume that they'd all turned to stare at me and what was going on. Albus was put in charge of escorting me to the hospital, something that he did quickly. The next thing that I knew, I was sitting on a cot and Madame Apolline was prying my eyelids open to get a good look at my eyes. She tsked when she saw my eyes and sent Albus on his way.

Once he was gone, she closed the curtains around my bed and after assuring me that this would only hurt a little, began to wave her wand at me while muttering under her breath. After about a minute, the pain started to fade away and instead of blend of colours, I could see the vague shapes of things forming.

I was told to take a nap and that I would be woken up for my last class of the day, Potions. I lay down and closed my eyes, letting my mind drift off to sleep. As promised, Madame Appoline woke me up ten minutes before Potions started. My vision had gone back to normal almost, everything was still a little more intense than I would have liked.

Madame Appoline helped me get my bag and after making sure that I wasn't about to fall over, she went back to her office and I was stuck with finding my way down to the dungeons. Turns out, I really needed that ten minutes to get there, I wasn't used to things looking so strange or so brightly coloured and everything was a bit disorientating. I almost jumped out of my skin when Albus put his hand on my shoulder and turned me around.

"I'm so sorry, I knew I'd be bad at the spell but I didn't think I'd be that bad!" Albus exclaimed while looking at me closely. Clearly he was checking to make sure that there hadn't been any lasting damage to me. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine now, everything still looks a bit strange but other than that, I'm fine," I assured Albus. He took his hand off my arm, and not realizing how much I'd been relying on his arm to keep me upright, I stumbled and almost fell over. Immediately he put his hand back on my arm and steadied me as everything in front of me spun a little.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Albus asked a worried look on his face.

"Yeah, I'll be fine, although I might need a little bit of helping finding a seat," I said as Slughorn opened the door to his classroom and everyone filed in. Albus joined me at a desk and kept shooting me concerned glances as I set up my cauldron and scales. Slughorn stood at the front of the class and clapped his hands together to get everyone's attention. Everyone quieted down and looked at him; he gave us a semi-long speech on the OWLs and then got right down to business.

"I'll be pairing you up and these will be your partners for the rest of the term, so don't get too comfortable where you're sitting," Slughorn said, brandishing a piece of parchment dramatically. He began to read off names and watched as students switched seats and everyone got set up with their partners.

"Lucinda Halloway and Albus Potter," Slughorn read out and looked up to see Albus and I already sitting together. He grinned happily and patted his bulging stomach. "Good, I see you two have already set yourselves up, did you by any chance peek at my list before class?" Slughorn asked us, narrowing his eyes jokingly. Albus and I both shook our heads no.

I put away my cauldron while Albus put his in the middle of our table. Slughorn goes on to explain how today we'll be brewing a potion that, if made properly, will allow you to change the colour of your appearance when you drink it for a short period of time. Once you've drunk the potion, all you have to do is think which part of you you want to get changed and it will. If it's not exactly right, it won't affect you that much, you'll just be changing colours for a few hours and you might throw up a rainbow. When the spell is done, it should be changing colours and look like a rainbow liquefied.

Albus and I immediately get to work on the potion. I got to gather the ingredients while Albus sets up the cauldron. I probably shouldn't be the one to be gathering the ingredients considering that I can barely stand straight without crashing into something. I read the labels on the jars carefully and collected everything I needed before I made my way back to my desk.

I'd barely set everything down before Albus had grabbed a jar and was emptying the contents of it into the cauldron. We're almost finished when the potion starts to bubble and sparks begin to fly out. Albus and I looked at each other in alarm and looked down at the potion as it started rising. Neither Albus nor I seemed to be able to look away but it was Albus who finally snapped to his senses.

He tried to drag me away from the rapidly rising potion but I refused to move. Albus just had time to take cover under the desk when the potion exploded all over my face. I don't remember anything after that. All that I remember is that everything started to fade away and twist itself all into one big blur. Everyone was staring at me and it was like I was falling to the ground in slow motion.

The rest is all just a big black blank. I couldn't remember anything that happened after I passed out. As far as I could tell, I was in the hospital wing and there were people fussing me. That's the worrying part, I could tell that people were fussing over me and that I was in the hospital wing because I heard all of the commotion being made, but I couldn't actually see the hospital wing around me.

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**A/N: **I know, I know, how am I possibly going to be able to keep track of all of these fanfictions and update them all and give them each my attention! I have devised a system though and I can assure you that it'll work out, trust me, it will. In the meantime, enjoy this first chapter!

thank you to the wonderful cynical for the cover image tda!


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